


Life With Jamie

by Applesandbannas747



Series: Life After Peter [2]
Category: Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook - Christina Henry, Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: (as happy an ending as you can really get with Lost Boy), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Found Family, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23168554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: To Nod, Captain Hook will always be his Jamie.
Relationships: Jamie/Nod
Series: Life After Peter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665373
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	Life With Jamie

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to [Jules](https://jules-and-the-nonsense.tumblr.com/) for pulling me back into this fandom after _two years_ ~~I thought I was basically free from the chaos this book wreaks in my heart~~ by talking to me about our boys and making me feel things again. this is all your fault because without you I wouldn't have needed to collect together some of my stray thoughts and headcanons into another fic but here we are <3

Nod woke up, warmth pressed against him in an impossibly familiar way. He buried his face into hair that was long and, in sleep, allowed free. It was second nature to pull the strong, wiry body against him tight. Jamie let out a sigh, exasperated with Nod’s antics even in his sleep. There were hours yet until sun up and Nod had no intention of waking fully and making something productive of himself. Not when bed and Jamie were so warm.

Being grown was different from all the seasons Nod had spent as a boy, more seasons than he could count. Time had a definitive sense of passing, one that had never been present on the island, where days and seasons and, possibly, centuries had bled together in one long and continuous stream. Not so anymore. He thought it might have something to do with the awareness of age and of time and of the death creeping in his bones the way it did in every man’s. Neither he nor Jamie talked of it, of the mortality they’d been newly reacquainted with five years past.

It was hard, too, not to acknowledge the passing of time when Charlie marked it so obviously in his growing. That made it more special somehow. More real. Each day was its own definitive landmark of Nod’s life, counting down to his last. The days he spent alive seemed more vibrant because of it. More important. More wondrous. Especially when each day started like this, in Jamie’s bed. With the man he loved by his side or wrapped in his arms.

He still couldn’t believe it sometimes that this was allowed. It amazed him beyond expression that Jamie had chosen him, that he alone was allowed to kiss Jamie and to touch him and to love him with no restraint. Thinking of the boy Jamie had once been, Nod sometimes felt overwhelmed to be holding him. Jamie, whom he’d always admired. Jamie, with his fierce eyes and terrifying brutality. Jamie, who had always looked after and loved them. Jamie, who was every bit as amazing now as he’d been five years ago, seven, ten, twenty, fifty. And he was all Nod’s.

Nod traced down Jamie’s back with a finger, touching his bare skin with reverence. When he stole a kiss against an old scar across Jamie’s shoulder blade, Jamie tossed around to face him, arms wrapping Nod up and mouth telling him to _hush,_ although he hadn’t made a sound.

“Jamie,” Nod whispered and nothing more. He liked to hear the sound of the name and hear the soft _yes_ Jamie always gave in return. Yes, he was here. Yes, this was real. Yes, they could be okay. Yes, he was Nod’s Jamie.

* * *

“Jamie! Nod!” Charlie clattered into the room, his voice cheery and bright and dissuading the automatic surge of Nod’s blood, the reach for his blade. Beside him, Jamie was doing the same. Calming himself of panic.

Bursting into Jamie and Nod’s quarters wasn’t new behavior but it wasn’t something either of them could get used to. For the best, in all honesty. Better to wake up ready to fight every morning Charlie came running to them than settle into the routine and pay for it in lost time and spilled blood.

“Charlie,” Jamie said, scolding. “You can’t barge in like this, you know better. You’re not a baby anymore, mind your manners and knock unless it’s an urgent matter.”

Nod chuckled, falling back into the bed and looping an arm around Jamie’s waist to drag him down with him. This was a war Jamie had been waging with Charlie for years now but the little duckling didn’t like to be excluded and, as a natural result, flooded into their room on many of the mornings he was not permitted to spend with them. It was a dangerous habit in more than one way but not one that Jamie could squelch. Nod thought Charlie would grow out of it. But he’d been wrong about that before. There was plenty that Charlie had yet to grow out of despite the years he’d put on.

“Bertha says she’ll teach me how to weave nets today,” Charlie declared proudly, crawling up the bed and landing himself on top of Nod and Jamie. It was the only way he fit anymore but it didn’t dissuade him.

One of the things he’d never grown out of and Nod now suspected he never would was his duckling love for Jamie, always tangling himself in Jamie’s coat or holding to his hand or the wrist above his hook. Affection and his soft sweetness had not abandoned Charlie, though he was now around the age Jamie and Nod must have spent their first stretch of forever on this island as. He was not fierce and sharp yet caring and tender as Jamie had been. Nor was he rough and tumble as Nod had been. He’d never have made it with Peter’s boys for long without Jamie.

“You convinced Bertha to teach you?” Nod asked, impressed. “She hates brats and babes, she’s always said.”

“I’m not a baby anymore,” Charlie reminded. “She says she’ll teach me as long as I don’t cry and whine and I said I won’t.”

“Very well, Charlie,” Jamie said, eyes soft for the growing boy atop them. “It’s a good skill to have. But remember your swordplay lessons with me today as well and don’t be late.”

Agreeing that he wouldn’t be, Charlie sprang off them again and scampered out.

“Time to get up?” Nod asked. He knew the answer already. Jamie was sitting up, climbing over him, pulling back long, dark hair.

* * *

Bertha was patient with Charlie. Nod couldn’t help but check in on them and he was surprised to see them working on nets with little trouble. She’d never had any patience for Charlie before and Nod wondered how the little fellow had changed her mind.

 _Just because I’ve got breasts doesn’t mean I want a child to suckle at them,_ she used to say any time Charlie got too near. She’d said worse things whenever Jamie had gotten near her when he’d first taken this ship and its ragged crew, depleted already by his own hands. They couldn’t know, of course, that Jamie—their Captain Hook—was the same boy who was infamous among them for slicing off right hands. Captain Hook was missing his right hand. There was a natural conclusion to draw there and it wasn’t at all the truth. Jamie never corrected it, so neither did Charlie or Nod.

Jamie was a good man. He always had been, even when he was only a boy. A fair and just man with a strong sense of right and wrong. And of duty, too. Nod had been with him for longer than he could know and in all his time on this island, Nod had never known Jamie to not look after someone who needed it. This crew had needed it, the women most of all, screaming and crying as they had been, like all the girls the pirates brought always had. There had been no question that Jamie would treat them as he treated his men, as he’d treated his boys. Anyone stupid enough to try anything with them had been met with Jamie’s brutal justice and now the few women on this ship were treated as they ought to be.

There’d been no question that Jamie would make sure of that. No question of his goodness. But Nod knew also that, in part, it was for Sal too. Their brave and bright girl who had been one of them. Who had deserved better than she’d got all her life. Bertha and the rest didn’t have to be afraid anymore like Sal had been and that was one of the few things Jamie and Nod and Charlie could do for Sal now.

* * *

Nod lounged on the deck, feet kicked up on the table—Jamie would scold him if he saw but Jamie was busy with other things so Nod whistled to himself and did not take his feet off the table.

“Nod.” Perhaps Jamie was not too busy to scold him after all.

“Captain.”

“Civilized people don’t like eating off of tables the first mate’s used as a footrest.”

“Civilized?” Nod asked, but he did as Jamie wanted and put his feet down. “That’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

“What’s that you’re working on?”

Nod followed Jamie’s suspicious eyes down to the sewing in his lap and smiled.

“A gift.”

“I don’t need another coat, you shouldn’t be wasteful.”

“Two coats will last longer than one. And this one’s warmer, see? I went myself for the fur.”

Jamie reached down to run a hand over the fine red fur and Nod heard his hum of approval. It was a fine thing Nod was working on, as brilliant red as Jamie’s preferred coat but made warmer for the winter. It was shaping up to be a cold one and the bite of the sea only made it worse. Last year Jamie had caught ill from it.

“I already took care of Charlie’s clothes,” Nod added before Jamie could continue chiding. “He grows so fast and all the time, I didn’t realize how inconvenient growing is if you do it right.”

“He _is_ growing fast,” Jamie said, standing straight again and expression going far off and troubled. It was a familiar expression.

“What’s the trouble, Jamie? Is he growing too fast or not fast enough?”

“Both.”

Nod understood it, that contradiction. Worry plagued him for Jamie and for their duckling. Charlie was so small and yet he was not, not truly. Not anymore. He’d been forced, in a way, to grow old right along with Jamie and Nod but had not poured years into the island to be poured back into him as his heart was aged mercilessly by Peter. Now that he was growing to be more than the small scrap of a boy he’d been, it at once showed his youth and the passing of it. He wasn’t growing fast enough to protect himself, wasn’t a master of blades nor particularly big nor strong. But he was growing too fast for Nod and Jamie to keep up with. When he was grown, would he insist on making his own way? Would he keep growing? Would he get cut down before he had the chance?

“You came to bed late last night, you should go sleep.” Even as Nod spoke, Jamie was rubbing his temples. But he put down his hand and shook his head.

“I swear I’ve heard a tinkling sound in the air as of late.”

“And you’ll be more use to us all fully rested. Sleep. I will keep watch.”

Nod took up Jamie’s dangling hand and held it in his a moment, broad and rough and warm. With a kiss pressed to it, he let it go again. If Jamie were not so tired, were not so worried, he’d have followed him to bed and kissed him more. As it was, he went back to his sewing, ears pricked. They heard nothing that day, nor the next, and when a week had passed with nothing but quiet, there was nothing to do but move past it.

Living in constant fear of Peter and his band of poor, lost boys wasn’t any way to live at all. Worry and vigilance were a part of life aboard their vessel but there was merriment too. The men sang and danced and Nod and Charlie joined in as often as not. Jamie never did. Nod wished he could do something to ease Jamie’s worries and pain and the crushing guilt he insisted on wearing. But there was nothing to do but be there for him when it got too heavy to bear alone.

This night was one of those times, Nod could tell. Jamie snuck away from the rowdy deck of the ship, crowded with men telling stories of the wild boys that had always lived on this island and of a spring that was said to grant eternal youth.

“Jamie’s sulking, isn’t he?” Charlie whispered into Nod’s ear as they both watched Jamie slip away. He recognized this particular routine by now.

“Watch over the men for me,” Nod told Charlie and was answered with an enthusiastic salute.

Jamie recognized this routine as well, coming so immediately into Nod’s arms it was clear he’d known Nod would follow. Nod liked that Jamie knew he would because Nod would never leave Jamie alone, not as long as he had any way of being right here by Jamie’s side.

“They’re just stories,” Nod breathed into Jamie’s hair. He could feel fingers digging into his back but not hook. Jamie was always impossibly careful with his hook.

“They’re true stories.”

“Are they?”

“Very possibly.” It was a confession, though Nod didn’t understand the importance of it. “I don’t remember. Every raid on pirates we ever made, every hand I ever cut off and every pirate I ever cut down...there’s too much to remember it all. They tell stories of me and I can’t say how true they are but I recognize myself in them, the villain of each one. And all of Peter’s too, and I recognize myself in each and every one.”

“The villain? No, not my Jamie. Not the villain. Not to me or to Charlie or to any of us.” The rest of _us_ was dead now. All dead and all for Peter. “None of their stories are true. None of Peter’s either. Only ours are.”

Jamie didn’t protest. Not out loud. Nod knew he didn’t believe it in his heart. He’d always see himself as a monster for what Peter had made him into. On some level, Nod felt himself a monster too. Death and blood had been the playthings they’d grown up with. Only, they hadn’t grown up, not for a long time. And all the time they’d played added up into something monstrous. But Jamie had always cared for them, for Nod and Fog and Crow and Charlie and Sal and Del and Kit and Jack and all of them. He’d kept them safe and looked after them and loved them. He loved them. Monsters couldn’t do that and so Jamie couldn’t be a monster. And even if he was, Nod would have loved him anyway.

There weren’t words Nod could use to make Jamie listen or understand. He needed quiet and comfort and, when Jamie pulled his head from Nod’s chest, he didn’t need words then either. Nod kissed a path all down Jamie’s face and felt Jamie’s relief when, at last, he reached his lips.

Nod loved Jamie so much he sometimes thought he might hold him too tight and forget to let him breathe. Everything Nod had ever loved had been ripped away from him and torn to awful, bloody pieces. He loved Jamie so much and so it only made sense that he could be the next to turn into a bloody and dead-eyed thing for Nod to bury. But all that Jamie had ever loved had been taken from him, too, all but Nod and Charlie. So he understood. And he held Nod a little too tight right back.

When Jamie pulled Nod into bed, he still didn’t let go but that was all right. Nod kissed him and kissed him until the night went quiet outside the cabin and they both fell asleep, wound up tight in each other’s arms.

* * *

Charlie knew better than to breach the cabin after Jamie had been in a sulk, meaning Nod didn’t wake to Charlie’s slight weight launching onto him but rather a heavier, sturdier weight shifting onto him.

“Morning, Jamie,” Nod yawned, trying to catch Jamie back in his arms and persuade him back to sleep. He always liked to wake up so damn early. Nod had no luck in capturing Jamie and found his right hand seized instead. “Aw, c’mon Jamie,” Nod laughed, “I know you’ve still got it in you, I wasn’t trying to challenge you, no need to—,” But Nod cut off, surprised when, instead of getting reminded of just why, exactly, he’d always avoided fighting with Jamie as a boy, Nod felt soft lips press against his wrist, Jamie’s grip on it turned gentle.

“The men all think you had a run-in with that wild boy they talk so much about.”

Nod got an elbow under him, propping up to squint at Jamie. He was done with his sulk, that much was obvious.

“I _did_ have a run-in with that wild boy. Lots of them. If the men could ever get me to tell the stories they’re so curious about, they’d be surprised to know that I still have run-ins with him. Only, he’s all grown.” Nod slipped his hand from Jamie’s grasp, up to cup his face and pull it to him for another kiss. “And all mine.”

“Yes,” Jamie agreed, falling into Nod and knocking him back on the bed.

As Jamie shed the long red coat he’d fallen asleep in last night and made efficient work of the buttons on his waistcoat, Nod decided waking up so early was worth it sometimes. He relieved Jamie of the task of undressing himself one-handed and then successfully pulled him back down to the mattress, fingers finding the leather strip Jamie bound his hair with and pulling it free to bury his hands in as he kissed Jamie again and again.

* * *

Nod stood overlooking the sea and the island in the distance, never far enough to be quite out of sight. He felt a small tug at his shirt and looked down to find Charlie’s hand tangled in it.

“Why was Jamie sad?” Charlie wanted to know. The sun was the bright orange of sunset and it cast Charlie’s large, wondering eyes and round cheeks in warmth. He worried too, just as Jamie and Nod did. They all worried for each other. Nod knocked knuckles lightly against Charlie’s head, still covered in hair as soft yellow as it had been when he’d first come to the island.

“He didn’t like to listen to the stories the men told of him.”

“But people are always telling stories about Jamie.”

“I know.”

“When we,” Charlie lowered his voice to a whisper, “lived on the island, the boys all told stories about Jamie. He didn’t mind then.”

“He was just a boy then. It’s harder once you grow up to face the things you did when you didn’t know any better. It’s even harder to admit that you _did_ know better and only ignored it to make life easier and more fun. Jamie’s ashamed of the way he used to be, he doesn’t like to hear it from other people and be reminded more.”

“But Jamie’s always been the best, I like hearing stories about him. Mart says he once took on three pirates all alone and beat them all before the rest of the crew even noticed!”

“We’re pirates now,” Nod reminded. “In those stories, Jamie’s the bad guy.”

“Jamie isn’t ever the bad guy,” Charlie protested. Nod had to smile at Charlie’s sureness of this.

“I know. But Jamie doesn’t think so. That’s why he doesn’t like to hear stories about him now. He was never like Peter, either, didn’t ever thrive off all us boys’ stories about him, but he didn’t used to hate them so much.”

 _“You_ told stories about Jamie almost more than anyone, I remember you did.”

“Because I’ve always thought Jamie made for the best stories.”

“Because you love him?”

“Because I love him,” Nod agreed.

“Did you always love him?”

“If there was a time I didn’t love Jamie, I don’t remember it. We all loved Jamie best.”

“Me too, I always loved Jamie best too. But now I love you best also.”

Nod pulled Charlie to him with an arm around his thin shoulders.

“Me too. I love you and Jamie best in all the world.”

Nod remembered when Charlie had first come to the island and it felt like such a distant time, a distant apathy. He remembered not caring one way or another for Jamie’s duckling, only knowing better than to hurt him or Jamie would be mad. But on the day Fog had been killed by the pirates, it was little Charlie that had toddled after Nod to bury his brother. And Jamie that had kept him from doing anything rash. And Sal whose shoulder he’d cried into. And Crow who had laughed with him like Fog couldn’t anymore.

And Crow who’d been cut open by Peter.

And Sal who’d been torn apart by crocs Peter had set on her.

And Charlie and Jamie who he still had and was always scared he’d lose.

“Charlie,” Jamie’s voice cut into the quiet neatly as he appeared beside them. “It’s time you got to bed.”

“I’m sleeping in your room tonight,” Charlie told them, disentangling from Nod.

“We’ll be along soon,” Jamie promised. Satisfied, Charlie left for bed without complaint.

“He’ll take up the whole bed,” Nod warned, but neither of them made any move to hurry after the boy before he could sprawl across the entire mattress.

“You didn’t always love me,” Jamie said, a small smile playing across his lips, offering Nod a rare sight. He’d been eavesdropping, then.

“Oh?”

“Yes. When you first came from the Other Place, you resented me for trying to keep you in line and from your fun with Peter.”

“I learned quick enough to love you. And I only didn’t trust you because people with rules in the Other Place were always awful, that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you at the same time.” Jamie shook his head, not following Nod’s logic. But it made sense to Nod. “I think I was in love with you from the start too, at least a little.”

That startled Jamie, earning Nod a surprised expression that was even rarer than a smile.

“You couldn’t have,” he said. “There was Sal…”

 _“You_ were in love with Sal. I only liked her. Loved her, too, but not _in love_ with her. I always loved you best, Jamie. In a way I didn’t really understand all the time, but I always wanted to be like you or be near you or impress you. Part of that love was always just out of reach until I grew up and understood it. I liked Sally. She was nice and pretty and the first girl I’d ever been friends with. I was growing, too, when we found out she was a girl. I liked her and that was something I could understand, my love for her was in reach already. But I knew she loved you. And that was okay. I wanted it to be me that she liked but I also wanted it to be me that you loved, I just couldn’t understand it then.”

Jamie didn’t say anything. He didn’t do anything other than stare out over the sea at first. Then he turned his face up into Nod’s and kissed him slow and long, bumping a shoulder under Nod’s arm.

“I won’t lie,” Jamie said quietly, forehead pressed to Nod’s. “I always loved you but not like this.”

“I know.”

“I fell in love with you after we were both grown but I don’t love you any less for that.”

Nod kissed Jamie again, letting Jamie know that he knew. He knew he hadn’t always had Jamie’s heart in the way Jamie had always had his. And he knew that he had it now, that Jamie had given it to him.

The moon had taken its place in the sky when Jamie murmured they should get to bed. Nod was reluctant to let go of his warmth. Tonight felt like a night for holding tight.

“You go ahead, I’m on watch tonight,” Nod told Jamie, loosing his grip around Jamie’s waist and letting his hands slide down his hips before leaving his body completely. “I’ll be along when Tan takes over.”

Jamie nodded, seeming as reluctant to leave as Nod was to watch him go.

* * *

The night felt far more cold and dark than usual now that Nod stood here keeping watch without Jamie or Charlie for company. But they were cautious and diligent and keeping watch always was one of the ways they protected themselves and each other from Peter. Living in fear and living with precaution were two different things. Nod hated that they had to live with any of it. Hated that somehow Peter had cheated them one last time, cheated them from their escape of him. It had to be Peter’s hand guiding their ship back to the island no matter how they tried to sail away from it. The crew had accepted their fate by now but they couldn’t understand why it had fallen on them. Nod wasn’t clear on the details. It wasn’t something Jamie would talk about.

Nod heard a sound in the air like a tiny bell and his hand was already around the knife at his hip, eyes scanning for the glint of wings that would give away Peter’s fairy. He should alert Jamie but there was no time.

Peter rose over the bow of the ship, landing on light feet atop the rail Nod had kissed Jamie against mere hours before. As always when Nod saw Peter, he felt a reckless anger bubble up in him, felt all his blood compelling him to tackle this boy to the ground and beat him senseless. He was bigger and stronger than Peter. Better at fighting. He’d been better than Peter even before he’d grown at all. But Jamie had said he couldn’t be killed and Peter liked to cheat. He’d cheated time and he cheated death and Nod knew Jamie worried what he might cheat them out of if they fell for his taunts and tried killing him. To be baited into trying something rash with Peter, who could not die, was as stupid as knowingly stepping into a trap.

“Where are your boys?” Nod growled, scanning the water and the skies. Peter tilted his head at Nod contemplatively and then shook it sadly.

“Oh, poor, stupid Nod,” he said, “they haven’t come to play tonight.”

Nod didn’t believe that for a second and he was already inhaling a lungful of air to holler an alarm when Peter cut him off cold.

“I’ll kill anyone that steps foot on this deck,” he said with a bored calm. “I just came to talk, Nod, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you but if you’re going to be no fun and shout for your friends, I’ll kill them.”

Nod swallowed his shout.

“You’re not Jamie,” he spat. “You couldn’t hope to kill so many pirates in one go. You can hardly manage one.”

“One is all it will take to hurt. Jamie would be so sad to lose even one of his new friends, don’t you think?”

“What do you want, Peter?”

“What I’ve always wanted.”

“You can’t have Jamie,” Nod scoffed.

“I will _always_ have Jamie. He’s mine.”

 _Make me yours. Won’t you?_ Jamie’s words echoed in Nod’s mind from years ago, spoken after a terrible raid.

“He’s not,” Nod said, fierce as he’d ever said anything. Jamie had fought too hard to still be Peter’s, wanted so bad to be free of his tormentor. “He’s not yours, you can’t have him. You never loved him right and you never deserved any of the love he gave you. Now tell me, what did you come here for?”

“I loved Jamie more than anyone,” Peter insisted with a childish flare of temper. Nod expected him to stomp his feet. “I gave him everything!”

“You took everything from him until all that was left was you and that’s not love. None of us ever loved you the way we loved Jamie and we loved him right, in a way you never could because you don’t know how. You don’t hurt people you love to punish them for having their own head and heart instead of being your playmate all the time. Admit it, you know Jamie’s out of your reach even if he’s trapped circling this damned island forever. He’ll never be yours. That’s why you came to talk to me, you’re mad with jealousy—,”

“Shut up!” Peter screeched, then, lower, “You don’t know anything, you don’t know Jamie like I do—,”

“I know him better than you ever did.”

“It’s all your fault. You and that little duckling and that—that _girl_. You all tried to take Jamie away from me. But I got rid of that girl, didn’t I? Can’t grow up with a girl in pieces, can you? And now Jamie has to play with me whenever I say. He can’t ever leave me. He’s mine forever.”

Nod hated Peter Pan with all his being. He even had a healthy fear of the boy. But talking to him now, it was clear that that’s all he was. A terrible, wicked boy. Throwing a tantrum because he’d noticed Jamie didn’t care one lick for him anymore. Because he’d seen that Jamie had found love and happiness and Peter wasn’t anything to him now.

“That’s worse, don’t you see?” Nod said, adopting a patient tone he didn’t feel but made Peter scowl. “That’s not the same as _won’t_ leave. _Can’t_ leave doesn’t mean anything but that you’re a dirty cheater. Jamie can’t leave this island but he would if he could. If he could, he and me and Charlie would go far away and never think of you again.”

“Why does he love you?” Peter asked, suddenly playing at calm again. “I know he likes his little duckling but why _you?_ You were never anything special to him.”

“It’s grown-up stuff, Peter, you wouldn’t understand. Jamie loves me in a way you don’t understand and I love him in a way you _can’t._ Nothing you do can change that.”

Peter didn’t like that. Not one bit.

“I can take it away,” Peter shouted. “I can cut it out so the only thing left is me!”

There was a flash of silver, quick as anything. Too quick. And, just behind it, just behind Peter’s shoulder, Nod saw Jamie emerging from their cabin. But he was too late. Peter’s dagger was too quick.

“Nod!”

That cry of pure anguish was what hurt Nod the most. He crumpled to the deck and knew Jamie was coming, found him by his side even before he had time to process anything. Jamie had always been quick. And now he knelt over Nod, eyes swimming and face a mask of pain the likes of which Nod had only seen rarely before. Always, it was Peter that made Jamie look like that and Nod hated him for it.

As hot blood poured from his neck and a sharp metallic taste took his mouth, Nod remembered about Jamie’s mama, throat cut open just like Nod’s. He thought of Jamie’s hand, sliced clean off like the hands of so many pirates Jamie had bested. All Peter did, he did to hurt Jamie as bad as possible, in the worst way. It was a game of his and Nod hated that he was a part of it, adding to his Jamie’s pain the last thing he’d ever do on this cursed ship and in this cursed life.

It was draining from him fast now. The blood. The life. Nod forced all the strength left to him into a hand that reached for Jamie’s cheek. Jamie took the burden of holding it there from him, pressing Nod’s hand against his cheek hard.

“…love y—you,” Nod slurred out.

“Don’t,” Jamie said, sounding as he had so many times before when warning Nod against trouble. But then his voice broke terribly. “Don’t leave me, Nod.”

It was a fight to keep his eyes open but Nod wanted to see Jamie’s face, even ruined in grief as it was until his world went black forever. He wanted to tell Jamie sorry for leaving. Wanted to tell Jamie it would be okay, even if Nod wouldn’t be. But, if he’d had the breath for it, Nod would only have told Jamie again that he loved him.

The pain was fading and Nod knew that had to mean he was leaving. Jamie gasped, a strangled sort of sound, his eyes widening as he stared down at Nod. He could see it. Whatever Nod was feeling, Jamie could see it and knew what was coming.

“You’ll be okay.” It wasn’t like Jamie to lie, but Jamie kissed his forehead, held his hand tighter, and looked up with an expression Nod had feared in his youth. “You can’t kill him, Peter, you can’t kill him any more than you can kill me.”

_What?_

“What?” Peter was on the verge of a tantrum, the thin word hanging in the air with the threat to explode.

“You can’t cut Nod out from me, not Charlie either. They’re a part of me and as long as I love them and they love me, the island has to keep them alive. It can’t tell. Just like it always kept us young for our love of you, his love of me makes him too much a part of me for the island to know to let die.”

Gingerly, Nod raised a hand to his neck, the other squeezed tight in Jamie’s hand. His throat was covered in blood but no longer bleeding from the shallowed cut that had split it open not even a full minute before.

“That’s not fair!” Peter raged. “Not fair! Not fair at all! You can’t do that!”

“I didn’t,” Jamie said menacingly. He let go of Nod’s hand and stood up, drawing out his dagger. “You did this. You did _all_ of this. If you want to kill Nod, you’ll have to let me go too. We’re too tied together for you to cut us apart.”

Nod couldn’t sit up, he’d lost too much blood, felt too unsteady to do anything more than breathe in and out. But he saw Jamie’s bare feet lunge, heard Peter’s scream. Peter didn’t like to get hurt and Jamie soon was back at Nod’s side, kneeling over him. Peter would have fled rather than face Jamie and risk further injury.

“Jamie…”

“Yes,” Jamie said in a hush.

* * *

Nod was in his bed, two points of warmth pressed hard against him on either side. He groaned, tried to shift onto his side but couldn’t manage it under the weight on his chest.

“Nod?”

“Jamie?”

“You lost a lot of blood and I suspect you’ll have a new scar but you’re awake.”

“I am,” Nod agreed, surprised by that.

On his other side, Charlie stirred awake.

“You were asleep for forever,” Charlie told him. “Jamie said I could stay until you woke up.”

“How…” Nod started, then thought better of it and relaxed back into the pillows. Now wasn’t the time to ask how, now was the time to be grateful for his little family and for the miracle that he was still with them.

* * *

“Jamie,” Nod said, catching Jamie at the elbow before he could leave their cabin. Jamie glanced over him worriedly. A week into his recovery and Jamie still expected him to pass out. “We need to talk.”

Jamie nodded slowly, brandishing his hook at the bed. Nod sat. Jamie sat next to him. Nod’s muscles screamed to hold Jamie, used to holding him so tight when they were together like this. He let them have their way, sliding an arm around Jamie’s waist and fitting their bodies snug together, side by side. Jamie rested his head on Nod’s shoulder and sighed.

“That day…that last Battle, I never told you everything.”

“Will you tell me now?”

“I told you Peter can’t die, that the island itself keeps him alive?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not important to us now but the blood spilled at Battle feeds him.”

Nod inclined his head grimly, remembering the pristine rock and the way Peter always watched them fight and kill each other on it.

“Peter always cheats,” he said.

“I don’t know what he is, but he’s tied up in the island. It keeps him alive. I killed him, Nod. I _killed_ him. And the island put him back together. He cut off my hand and cursed me to never leave this island. To never leave him. To live forever.”

“Forever?”

“Yes. I can’t die, the island won’t let me.”

“And you won’t let me die either.”

“No, I won’t.” Jamie sat up straight, pulled out of Nod’s embrace, looked him straight in the face. “But I think you could leave.”

“What?”

“If you took Charlie and the crew, I think you could leave. The island has to keep you alive because you’re mine and I’m yours and it can’t tell the difference. But if you wanted to…if you left, it would let you go.”

“If I left, I wouldn’t be yours anymore and you wouldn’t be mine.”

“You’d be free.”

“I’m not leaving you, Jamie. I never will.”

“Never is a long time.”

“Not a long enough time for my love to run out. I’ll never leave you.”

Jamie leaned back into him and Nod gladly wrapped him up in both arms. He fit there perfectly.

“Peter can’t understand how to love, can he?” Jamie asked.

“No,” Nod said. “I don’t think he’s capable of loving someone right. I think he knows it. He was spying on us, I’m almost sure of it.”

“He never did like other people having something he didn’t.” Jamie twisted them all around and laid down on the bed, never letting Nod let him go.

“I’m glad it’s me that has you. I’m glad it’s me that gets to love you.”

“I love you,” Jamie whispered in a smile as he looked up at Nod. “I love you for always.”

**Author's Note:**

> the magic works that way because I said so and you can't prove that it doesn't
> 
> I'm most likely done for real now but, as ever, who knows! I'm an emotional disaster and maybe in another two years I'll add more to this series lmao


End file.
